About HCSA SPIN
Our work with single parents and lone caregivers can be traced back to Dayspring’s early days in 2006, when we provided counselling, mentorship and like skills training to women who needed help. In 2014, we started Dayspring New Life Centre for women with unsupported pregnancies, and this pivoted toward single-parent families with the launch of SPIN (Single Parents INformed, INvolved and INcluded) in 2017. Today, SPIN supports caregiving and improved quality of life for single parents, strengthens their social support network, provides them access to resources, and empowers them to make informed decisions through our interactive self-check website.
Partner Agency
Co-Created with NCSS
Year Started
2017
Share Your Time and Expertise
Give from Your Heart
Multi-Stresses from Solo Caregiving
There are a variety of circumstances that result in single-parent families, including divorce or separation; death of a partner; incarceration or deportation; and unwed mothers. Single parents are often overburdened as they shoulder the income-earning and care-giving responsibilities of two parents, face social stigma and lack social support in caring for their children.
Low-income single parents often prioritise understanding from management and workplace flexibility, so that they can balance employment and childcare. The added stresses of financial pressure and time poverty can often result in a scarcity mindset and tunnel vision, with immediate needs such as paying the bills and putting food on the table crowding out thoughts of spending quality time with their children, finding and making sense of the assistance available to them, upgrading their skills and qualifications for a higher income or saving up to buy their own HDB flats.
Single parents may also lack a supportive social network, and face a lack of understanding on their circumstances and needs from those closest to them. Their social isolation may be compounded by a feeling of embarrassment, aggravated by social stigma, which result in single parents trying to make do by themselves rather than reach out for support.
Our Impact in FY2023
Community Care
Our services are designed to empower single parents who lack support, so that they may become more resilient and self-reliant. We help them to attain increased capacity in parenting / caregiving, social and prosocial support, practical resources and their psychosocial wellbeing.
Aspirations that single parents have to upgrade their qualifications go largely unfulfilled due to time poverty and financial pressure. Even if they are able to balance employment and childcare, single parents find themselves in the unenviable position of trying to earn an income sufficient for a family, without the support of any other household member. Finances are strained, ‘luxuries’ are felt to be unnecessary and financial help and assistance are often thought to be for others ‘in greater need.’
Single parents within this study placed great emphasis on spending quality time with their families, highlighting the importance placed on family bonding. These individuals carry the full ‘burden’ of parenthood without the support of another individual as would be seen in a ‘traditional’ family structure, and subsequently feel the pressure of these expectations. Time for personal development, whether it is health improvement (through participation in sport), upgrading skills (through attending educational courses), or relaxation (through taking time to meet with friends), is lacking, and these deficits might have long-term effects on the health and well-being of these single parents.